Hi,
I'm Teresa Hubbard.
Welcome back to our continued reading of the text to A Course in Miracles.
We continue today with the introduction to Chapter 13,
The Guiltless World.
To summarize my takeaways,
In the introduction to Chapter 13 we learn that the acceptance of guilt into our minds was the beginning of the separation.
That our acceptance of the atonement is its end.
We further learn that if we did not feel guilty,
We could not attack,
For condemnation is the root of attack,
Which is the judgment of one mind by another as unworthy of love.
For the mind that judges perceives itself as separate from the mind being judged.
But our lesson here is that our guilt is what obscures us from the Father and has driven us insane.
We must understand that the world we see is a delusional system that has made us mad from guilt.
Yet we will not realize this is an illusion until we accept the eternal fact that God's Son is not guilty.
God's Son deserves only love.
The atonement is our final lesson,
For it teaches us that never having sinned,
The Son of God is not guilty and is worthy only of love.
I invite you to keep a few things in mind as you listen to the reading.
The course uses male pronouns,
Yet this is simply a way of pointing to the spiritual being having no gender.
The course is written in first person,
And although not introduced directly to the reader,
It becomes clear that the words are from Jesus,
Often quoting from the Bible.
The course uses traditional Christian terms in a non-traditional manner.
These words are simply pointers to truth,
Nothing more.
A few terms you will hear within this reading.
Son of God,
All of us,
The creations of God.
Atonement,
The Holy Spirit's plan of correction,
Healing our minds from the earthly world of illusion to God's world of truth.
Holy Spirit,
The communication link between God and us,
Bridging the gap between the mind of Christ and our human minds,
The voice for God.
Sin,
An illusion whereby we believe in the reality of our separation from God.
This stems from our egoic sense of our unworthiness of forgiveness,
Which leads to guilt.
Such guilt is projected onto ourselves and others.
Salvation,
We are saved from our belief in sin and guilt through the change of mind that forgiveness and the miracle bring about.
Crucifixion,
The symbol of the ego's attack on God and therefore on his son,
Witnessing for us our belief in suffering,
Sacrifice,
Victimization,
And death.
The true meaning of the crucifixion is that our true identity of love can never be destroyed because death has no power over life.
Real world,
Through total forgiveness,
We are released from our perception of sin and guilt,
Allowing us to see through the vision of Christ,
Which blesses rather than condemns.
And now,
On to the reading.
A Course in Miracles Chapter 13,
The Guiltless World Introduction.
If you did not feel guilty,
You could not attack,
For condemnation is the root of attack.
It is the judgment of one mind by another as unworthy of love and deserving of punishment.
But herein lies the split.
For the mind that judges perceives itself as separate from the mind being judged,
Believing that by punishing another,
It will escape punishment.
All this is but the delusional attempt of the mind to deny itself and escape the penalty of denial.
It is not an attempt to relinquish denial,
But to hold on to it.
For it is guilt that has obscured the Father to you,
And it is guilt that has driven you insane.
The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God's Son was the beginning of the separation,
As the acceptance of the atonement is its end.
The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt.
Look carefully at this world,
And you will realize that this is so.
For this world is the symbol of punishment,
And all the laws that seem to govern it are the laws of death.
Children are born into it through pain,
And in pain.
Their growth is attended by suffering,
And they learn of sorrow and separation and death.
Their minds seem to be trapped in their brain and its powers to decline if their bodies are hurt.
They seem to love,
Yet they desert and are deserted.
They appear to lose what they love,
Perhaps the most insane belief of all,
And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground and are no more.
Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.
If this were the real world,
God would be cruel,
For no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation and be loving.
Love does not kill to save.
If it did,
Attack would be salvation,
And this is the ego's interpretation,
Not God's.
Only the world of guilt could demand this,
For only the guilty could conceive of it.
Adam's,
Quote,
Sin,
End quote,
Could have touched no one had he not believed it was the father who drove him out of paradise.
For in that belief,
The knowledge of the father was lost,
Since only those who do not understand him could believe it.
This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son,
And until you realize that God's son cannot be crucified,
This is the world you will see.
Yet you will not realize this until you accept the eternal fact that God's son is not guilty.
He deserves only love,
Because he has given only love.
He cannot be condemned,
Because he has never condemned.
The atonement is the final lesson he need learn,
For it teaches him that never having sinned,
He has no need of salvation.
